I was making a presentation yesterday for Web Dev conference yesterday when this idea came to my mind – “We designers create BMWs from Maruti 800s”. Now for all those who don’t know what Maruti 800 is – it’s the most basic and the cheapest car available in
Let me tell you the whole story. So I was writing about how design helps create Humane Softwares – softwares that are pleasant to use. The argument was that functionality and the experience has to go together to create a WOW software. Now for the functionality driven engineers – who believe functionality is the only aspect of software – I made an argument saying as we all are humans we have ‘feelings’. We always look for feeling in anything we do.
Is Art functional?
What functionality does a painting have? Nothing. It just hangs on the wall without any function. But people still – see it, appreciate it and buy it (by paying millions of dollars). What does it create – it creates some feelings in us and that’s what we all care for in art. The same applies for software – we are humans we look for a pleasant experience in using them.
Maruti 800 to BMW
What’s the function of a car – to take us from point A to B. So why doe we buy or aspire to buy (like me) a BMW (luxury cars)? Just because they are a pleasure to drive. We, designers in the software industry help to transform Maruti 800 (functional car) to a BMW car (sedan). But if BMWs don’t work properly (functionality) I don’t think anyone would buy them. Thus both functionality and experience has to go together. Same arguments can be made with Architecture as metaphor. Why do we go to an architect or interior designer?
Now, it’s for the engineers to decide whether they want to work in a Maruti factory and keep creating Maruti 800s or do they want to work in a BMW factory and work on BMW Luxury Sedans?
2 comments:
I think engineers and designers can get satisfaction from building Maruti 800's. It depends on how the team approaches the problem. Currently, Tata is attempting to build a car that costs 1 lakh. That's 1/2 the price of a Maurti 800. What a challenge!
Regardless of the goal, whether it be a high-end sports car or transportation for the masses. It takes collaboration between engineering and designers to pull off a success.
I agree to your point- it all depends on the objective of the product/project & collaboration.
What is important is that a product is a puzzle which has these different component - engineering, ui design, business etc. All of these have to come together to build up this project. Regardless of the goal; these component 'must' combine together to make a 'great' product. Problem happens when there is a miss match. - we have the bmw engine with a maruti experience.
But this differentiation of low end and high end doesn't exists much in the internet industry. Where every product is mostly free; thus be it a maruti or bmw they compete on similar ground. Thus every one wants to be bmw (desirable).
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